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#1
04-28-2011, 08:19 PM
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Diagnosing a dead spot
Checking out a new (to me) guitar, I play notes all over the fretboard and listen to how they decay. I like what I hear except for the 12th fret on the bass E (and to a lesser extent, notes nearby).
Playing the same note at 5th string 7th fret sounds fine. But 6th string 12th fret has very short sustain. Relief is a little bit low (and I don't currently have the correct truss rod wrench). Since it's pretty clearly not a frequency-related issue, could it be a relief issue? Anybody listen to all/most notes decay when checking out a guitar? It's kind of enlightening. Different timbre, different sustain, and different harmonic decay.
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#2
04-28-2011, 08:30 PM
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Does it get better past the 12th fret? Say at 17 or 19? On my guitar, the sustain at the 12th fret is about half as long as the open string.
At the 12th fret I doubt that the relief would be the issue. Have you tried new strings?
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#3
04-28-2011, 08:34 PM
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It gets better at around fret 15, so maybe there's a little hump around 12 that I'm not detecting. I checked the frets for level (3 at a time), and they seemed level.
New strings are on the guitar, but maybe it's something about these particular strings and specific vibrating lengths....
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#4
04-28-2011, 08:48 PM
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Ah ha! I just double-checked for level and found that the 16th fret was a bit high on the bass side. Perhaps that's killing the string when fretted at 12....
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#5
04-28-2011, 08:55 PM
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it's a wolf tone. i have one on my g (d string, 5th fret). even the f# on the a string does it too. it's a weird acoustic/frequency property. look it up.
 if the note is not buzzing out, it's not a fret issue.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_tone
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#6
04-28-2011, 08:59 PM
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Quote:
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gits: good and plenty chops: snickers
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#7
04-28-2011, 09:37 PM
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One possibility is that the 12th fret is loose in its slot. I've seen that rob a note of sustain and body. Without seeing it, hard to diagnose as that. If you have enough hands, you can push down on the fret near the E string with the end of a pencil or dowel while playing the note. See if that alters the characteristic of the note.
What you are describing isn't a wolf note.
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#8
04-28-2011, 10:13 PM
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Thanks, Charles. I tried fretting at the 12th with a small hammer handle (part on the fret, part on the string), and the fretting pressure and/or pressure on the fret does seem to have an effect, but it's not huge.
I have to think the real culprit is the high 16th fret since the note just sings at that fret and not so much at the lower frets around 12. I tried tapping in the 16th fret, and it doesn't want to move, so I'm going to try to level it tomorrow.
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